They don't need any help with #2...the new user experience. That's already the best part of the game. They should figure out how to make the new user experience, as is, transcend throughout the other tiers. Tier 1 is great...make the other tiers better.

The most frustrating part about playing a healer class in WAR for me was that for every 1 or 2 players that thanked me for healing during scenarios and open rvr, there were 5-10 more eager to tell me how to properly heal them. I enjoyed pvp in WAR, but playing a healer pissed me off, especially in pick up groups. Unless you are especially thick skinned, are generally immune to asshats, or you group with guildies and friends regularly, I don't recommend a healing class in WAR. With that said, my experiences with the healing classes are only up to T3, so things may change in T4.

My experiences were a little different regarding the Zealot/Rune Priest mirrors and their general effectiveness. I actually preferred the Rune Priest over the Warrior Priest because he seemed more durable to me, and I had more options to heal, crowd control, and mix in some ranged damage. I know that seems crazy, but when you factor in the detaunt, plus the instant shield, plus nice HOTs, and a knock back, I was able to heal through most single attackers while still providing ranged healing. I could spec my RP to do pretty good single target damage in pve, but I stuck with mostly support in pvp, with some dots to apply pressure or finish off runners.

The WP was a blast to play in pve, but the melee-heal mechanic in the midst of pvp was something I never felt comfortable managing. You really have to know what you are doing as a WP at higher levels.

I can vouch for the White Lion being fun to play, same with Slayers/Choppas. The drawback to those classes for me was that my fun was directly related to the healing support we had...even if I was playing carefully as a skirmisher or using hit and run tactics.

I found the tank classes fun, especially if you like to pvp and you don't have a healer friend or guild healers. They are durable, do good damage, and can mix it up pretty well without having to play too carefully. I really enjoyed the Chosen/Kotbs mirrors, and the Ironbreaker. The Swordmaster is a good offensive tank, or at least was while I was playing. Upper tier tank classes can get complex to play well though. I remember having 4 hotbars up as an IB, and needing to use skills from all of them.

My favorite mounts in order:The Wheel. How could you not like it? It has a sweet leather padded seat, detailed fins, painted flames, and a magnetic sword holder! Of course you have to suffer through learning how to play a TG, but well worth it.

Gorilla Demon. Weird and disturbing, but very cool. Riding on the shoulders of another humanoid is what makes it freaky to me.

Lizard. It's huge! Looks good. The only downside is that it makes a very loud chomping sound when idle.

Spider. Very drow like. It's definitely not the cute anime style of spider either. This thing is fairly gross, if you suffer from arachnophobia...especially the sound effects.

Wind Serpent. I'm not a big fan of the cute anime flying serpent. It looks more like a car from a carousel than a badass war mount. It makes a world of difference in gameplay though being able to zip around as a HE laying waste to everything.

Of the consoles I've owned, the Sega 32x + CDrom and the Atari 5200 top the list of console duds. The Atari 5200 had some decent games, but the clunky oversized console plus the horrific fullly analog, numberpad controllers didn't help (and the 4 red side buttons...2 on either side).

As much as I think it's cool what Dana is trying to do...sticking it to EA, this type of stance only works because the sport is still young. He may actually be pissing off his fighters in the process by closing off a source of possible revenue. How long will it be before there is the equivalent of a UHC players/fighters union/association that represents the players and their likenesses? Maybe not anytime soon, but if the sport keeps growing at its current rate, I don't see how he will avoid this. Unless he wants to get mired down in one off litigation battles and court appearances with individual fighters for a good % of his time.

No and they aren't going to, it's an MMO with a 20 level tutorial not an MMO with an 80 level tutorial. The 1-20 stuff was a real doddle.

That's too bad. I'd happily play another 60 levels of content as polished and fun as the starter island. From my perspective, I would paraphrase what you wrote with a few changes:It's an MMO with good storytelling and immersion for the first 20 levels, and standard fare MMO dungeons and questing for the next 60.

My biggest complaint with AOC was that aside from the excellent combat system, after Tortage(sp?) the game felt like a standard mmo. The only thing keeping me going into the 40s was the awesomeness of lopping off heads and limbs, combusting fools just by pointing at them, and ripping hearts out and eating them for health. Story line and quests...not so much.

The reason for this, when I sit back and think about it, is philosophical.

Team Madden is fundamentally looking at ways to make the gameplay authentic. Terms like 'authenticity', 'realism', believability,' these are words that the team continues to pound home. And they're damn serious about it. The notion that the high lvl members of Team Madden are looking at ways to completely reshape what that franchise means -- is a pretty big deal. I have been to a LOT of E3s and have been to a LOT of Madden presentations. I ALWAYS come away thiking...eh...it's Madden. Not this year.

They are talking about core football design concepts.

The NCAA team is talking features.

That's a pretty important difference, I think.

Unfortunately it is that mindset that is putting Madden out of reach of my limited understanding of the realistic details of playing or coaching football. I actually miss the more arcade style of video football games where I could just pick up and play. More realistic with deeper playbooks is actually a bad thing for me. I understand the basics of video game football playcalling, but the more realistic the game gets, the more it becomes a sim and less like a game for me. I don't know what half of those plays are, and have no clue why I would pick one over the other. And frankly, I don't want to know. I've been a football fan since I was a kid, but I don't want to actually simulate playing football to that detail. I just want to run suckers over, catch passes, make some good hits, and enjoy the game. I don't think I'm in the Madden demographic anymore.

I have been watching with interest the fictional football game being developed right now that actually looks fun (for me).

On the other hand, I thought lots of the Web revealed plot stuff was very well done. It kept my interest and was a really great way to tell the story without having tons of NPC exposition.

Agreed: the Web of Intrigue cutscenes were among my favorite parts of the game. Very well done!

-Autistic Angel

I really enjoyed the WOI cutscenes too. They had kind of an X-Files feel to them...crossed with 28 Days.

Thoughts on the ending:

Spoiler for Hiden:

I completely agree on the ending twist. I also thought that the blackwatch commander was Green's son. How cool would that have been? At a minimum, the blackwatch commander turned Mercer sympathetic would have been a better story than...oh he's a monster...that you already fought!

They show in a cutscene with Green that Mercer steps in the pile of bio goo that she vomited. That viral goo took some of Mercers viral dna when he stepped in it, which gave it some of his powers. They talked about "imagine what the cancer must have felt when they ripped a part of it out". I think the supreme hunter was that cancer. It had a missing spot on it's back too. The whole idea is silly, and the Green baby storyline would have been much cooler.

They could have done so much more with Green too, as Mother. I thought for awhile that Alex was her baby. That would have been interesting too, especially if they had a few missions where they both worked together. I agree though, they missed some good opportunities in the storytelling department.

My total time played at the end was 21 hours. I stopped doing side challenges about about half way through once I upgraded the powers I wanted. I was starting to get burned out, and was begining to think of playing other games, so I just stuck with the story missions all the way through to the end. If I needed more xp points I would just take down a couple of bases and hives and then start the next story mission.

It's kind of a double edged sword though, because the story missions and boss battles are the weakest part of the game...or most annoying part. The overall gameplay experience was fun for me, but it did start to wane towards the latter half. There's no way in hell I'm playing the story missions again. I may zip around killing stuff and completing challenges in free roam, but more than likely I'll be moving on to the next game in my backlog.

I am looking forward to a sequal...if they listen to the critical feedback and improve on the story missions, power development, and boss battles. They have the foundation for a really good game. My first suggestion for a sequal would be to lose the shiny-fancy leather jacket over perma hoody look. I shudder when I think about what nasty hair splooge he must have to keep his hoody affixed to his dome like that.

Final Boss Fight Tips:

Spoiler for Hiden:

They made this fight hard by letting the Supreme Hunter do an ass load of damage with each hit, and they gave him access to your devastator attacks. The good news is that the fight is more tedious than it is hard. The developers were nice enough to stock the area with a buffet of soldiers and a seemingly endless supply of attack helicopters. The soldiers are for eating...of course. I had the most success running around and staying away from him (to avoid his devastator and regular attacks) while maxing out my health (consuming soldiers) and using critical pain devastators on him (the 2 fingered X+B attack). I used air dash a lot to mix up my running pattern and to change direction. The crazier I ran and zigged, the less I got hit.

The bad news is that everything will be trying to get you, including helicpoters, jets, the boss, etc. I think it's best to keep moving. It is possible to stun the SH with a fully charged throw, but I was never fast or aware enough to move in quickly to land some shots. I actually used that time to consume soldiers and get my health up.

The most important tip imo is to ensure you have your health maxed when the SH is just under half health. You're going to need all of that blue for some quick critical pain devastators. At this point I saved my devastators and used the muscle mass power running around throwing evrything I could get my hands on at him. There are some bomb racks conviently left on the deck that have single bombs that can be thrown at him for good effect. When the count down begins, lock on to him and unleash back to back critical pain devastators. For me that meant holding the left trigger and then using 2 fingers to mash X+B. His health will plummet, and you should have enough time (I had over a minute remaining) to finish him off. I picked up more stuff on the deck and threw it at him until he died. There's a riskier option: after your last devastator, get in close and go to town on him, he will bring you down to your critical mass save, and then unleash that free devastator on him. I was too chicken to try that, but I'm betting it would be the fastest way to finish him off.

can anyone tell me how far i am into the game,i have just fought some specialist guy with black/gray hair in one of the Hive's

That fight is closer to the beginning. I think I had just picked up the whip fist power for that fight and was slamming him in the face with hit. It might be considered early mid game? Maybe I'm blocking out other stuff too, it just seemed fairly early.

I definitely wasn't bored at that point, so if you're already bored, that's not a good sign. You do get some cool powers and combat abilities later in the game.

The last 1/4 of the story missions and boss fights were not terribly hard, just really annoying and no fun. They could have done so much more with those fights, instead of reverting to early 90's boss battle conventions. There's nothing fun about a boss that has multiple sets of shields separate from a health bar that need to be whittled down from 100% each time before the health bar is affected. Who finds floaty green boss orbs circa sega genesis fun? Flying rocks from the pavement, cool. Thrown cars and bio-splooge, ok. Floaty green orbs though? We've been there before...15 years ago.

Boss immunities and boss shields are lame, and often times fly in the face of what the player has learned up to that point. In prototype, the bosses aren't really hard, they're just not fun. The E. Green fight could have been a really cool set piece, but when I actually started playing it I fully expected to hear 16 bit boss music. Timers during boss battles are lame too. Again, not hard, just not fun.

Everything else in prototype has loads of fun smeared all over the place. It was a really fun ride, minus the boss fights. Who cares if the boss fight only lasts a couple of minutes? If the boss fight was fun and intense, I'm good. I don't need the fight to drag on for 20-30 minutes to make it feel epic, that only leads to all of those artificial conventions like shields, temp damage and power immunities, and phased boss fights (phase 1...blow off the arms, phase 2...kill the eyes, phase 3...blow off the feet, phase 4...blow off the shiny metal thingy on its back, phase 5...ok now you can hurt some of his health but be quick because his arms will grow back and you have start at phase 1 again).

I didn't enjoy that first boss fight inside the base with the swarms of hunters. It wasn't hard, just annoying getting knocked around like that. I learned the frustration of trying to pick up dropped weapons on the run during that battle, while having hunters interrupting me every few seconds.

Overall I haven't found the remaining boss fights to be as hard as I've read. They are more on the annoying side than anything. Or maybe they took me another try to figure out. They haven't been awesome fun boss battles, but they weren't Ninja Gaiden hard either. By the time I started what I would consider the mid to late game boss fights, I had so many tools at my disposal that it was just a matter of picking what worked best and trying again (if needed).

I'm not sure "degree of violence" is a strong enough expression for what players will encounter in this game. You will be walking, jumping, gliding and running in gore (you'll notice the first time that you accidently pick up a citizen that you have no other option but to liberate their life from their body in the most gruesome of ways). The game also conveys the message that almost everything you do results in people dying, usually by the 100s and 1000s.

My son is banned from even listening to me play prototype. "But Daddy, I'll just close my eyes during the scary parts. I won't be scared."

Thermal vision is useful if you want to quickly pick out infected from the normal population of morons still running openly in the streets, but my Alex doesn't care, they're all just speed bumps on the way to his next mission. I did find thermal vision somewhat helpful taking out hives when there were smoking hulks of tanks, apcs, and downed helo's litering the streets, obscuring my vision.

There's a combo called Cannonball that, as you can imagine, hurls Alex through the air in a tight cannonball towards the nearest helo. Unfortunately, even with my skinny fingers and thumbs, I have a hard time doing the X+Y combo. There are many other ways to turn helicopters into burning wreckage, so it's not a big deal...it just reminds me that I can't hold my thumb perfectly sideways without moshing the Y or A buttons.

Taking powers away mid-game is lame, but it seemed more like an attempt to get me to learn the combat combos better than to be annoying. It was still annoying, but I did learn some of the combos I would never have used if I still had the whip arm. In fact, the game made me purchase a specific combo before I went into that mission.

Tip: Don't worry about side missions while your powers are gone...just plow through the 3-5 story missions. You will be rewarded with awesomeness beyond what you started with before your powers were...suppressed. And by awesome I mean...nevermind, you have to see it to appreciate it. Think anime meets Aliens+Blade. Weird, but badass. Oh and for those early missions, try and use disguises, they make life a lot easier (I didn't at first, and it was non stop strike teams the entire time).

Things that were cool about my last play session:- Flying over the city in a gunship at night. - Skyjacking said gunship with my whip arm grab.- Grabbing orbs while in the gunship.- My new post parasite look. - Watching Manhattan turn into a set for 28 Days...and me being one of the monsters. - Dark Hero...not so much. I killed thousands of civilians on my last mission as just collateral damage. No good comes to the local population when I show up. Of course, they're f***ed anyway, so it's either me now, or the virus in a few days. - Slicing open a tank with my new post parasite weapon.

Things that were not cool:- X+B. I do not have the thumb dexterity to pull this off. This is a 2 finger move for me, and that makes it mostly useless. I want to cannonball into helicopters! Ah well...I don't need that move anymore, but it would have been fun. - Losing powers. - When the game recommends getting a disguise for the mission, I really should have listened.

I've stuck with only the main story and class quests, and I already have 13 hours invested with 75% completion on Bronze. I think that's pretty good value considering I haven't even touched a side quest. My plan was to just stick to story and class quests for bronze as kind of a practice run, and then to do side quests in Silver. I finished the serephim class quest line about 12 hours into bronze, which had a nice reward for a melee seraphim. Too bad the bfg art doesn't change based on bfg mod upgrades, or level. Would be cool to see a bunch of tech junk hanging off the bfg, like scopes, underbarrell stuff, laser sights, anything to make it look even more obnoxious and over the top than it already is.

I think that's the last character I have to take to 15, then I'll have some deciding to do. It's going to come down to choosing a slightly gimped 55+ Dryad... the Inquisitor, or the Temple Guardian. Unless, of course the Elf is even better!

I did the same thing. I think they did a good job with the characters, which makes it tough deciding what to play. My experiences on bronze difficulty so far have been:

Dryad (lvl20): Easy. Riding on a giant lizard blowing things away (literally with a blowpipe). Surprisingly high survivability with the nature health regen and armor buff. Blowpipes have a huge advantage over other ranged weapons in that their fire to hit animation is instant. Kind of boring though for me. Great against groups and good against single targets and bosses. Voice over banter is ok, nothing really annoying other than the "i hate cities" stuff, but that's to be expected, right? Armor looks good, especially at higher levels with the nature and vodoo armor.

Shadow Warrior (lvl21): Easy. With large boosts to health and damage reflection from 2 excellent buffs, he can wade into large groups and not pop a single health potion. His mount is nuts...looks like a demon gorilla monkey. He kicks ass both against groups and single target champs and bosses. Fun character to play if you like in your face melee. Also has really good co-op support with a health regen and + def banner, and another shout that increases attack I believe. I haven't tried the summoning aspect, looks interesting. Voice over work is super cheesy, and the armor pieces up to level 20 range from cool to really goofy.

Temple Guardian (lvl21): Complex, but very hardy, and he can dish out good damage. This character is kind of wonky, and takes some digging into to understand. There are several undocumented features of the TG that can play a big role in their effectiveness. The left arm morphs based on the last combat art used. 2 combat arts actually leave a passive bonus for the TG, based on the arm type. For example, Battle Extension (scorpion thing protruding off the shoulder) gives a passive bonus for a chance to double hit, like dual wielding, as long as the scorpion thing is out. Dedicated Blow changes the left arm into a spiky ball, which gives a passive bonus to hit, as long as that arm remains out. And, to make it even more complicated, if the TG is mounted in his wheel, the passive bonus for a chance to double hit from Battle Extension becomes a 100% chance...which is very powerful for mowing down bad guys. Essentially, 100% dual wielding with every basic attack. It's almost better not to use his melee combat arts while battle extension is out. The TG also benefits greatly from combos, and is highly dependant on combat art mod upgrades, more so than the other characters. In the end though, he kicks ass, both against large groups with screen wide area of effect combat arts, and single targets and bosses. Very survivable too with his shields. Oh, and to make the TG even more complicated, he doesn't really shine unless he's using 2+ buffs.

Seraphim (lvl30 and lvl15): My highest level character is my ranged, BFG seraphim. She's very survivable with her armor and shields, kicks butt with her BFG, and can mow down single targets and bosses with ease. She doesn't kill groups of mobs as quickly as the other characters I've played, but no other character comes close to how fast she takes down bosses, champs, and single targets. She's 75% of the way through bronze, no deaths, and no problem with any of the bosses. The other seraphim I tried was dual wielding melee, and she was really impressive, and fun to watch. She mowed down groups of baddies with ease, and did pretty well against champs and bosses too. Very strong character that can be melee, ranged, caster, or some combo of each. Voice over work is mostly annoying, and the armor can range from colonial marine commando with wicked looking wings, to goofy underwear and butterfly wings...ugh.

Inquisitor (lvl15): Aside from the funky robes and occasional oddly shaped alien helmet, this character is pretty cool. His Clustering Maelstrom (sp?) combat art is hilarious. You move a ground targeting circle to a location near a mob of baddies, release the button, and watch as they all float to that spot, smack into each other, and all die (or come close to dying). That never gets old. He is very strong in melee, and is the only character that starts off with the dual wield skill. He also seems to be tailored for the polearm, as I've found a lot of Inquisitor specific pole arms throughout the game. He looks like an emperor rip off from Star Wars, but he plays more like a combination Sith and front line melee fighter. He's kind of a melee-caster hybrid, that wears some very psychedelic robes. Voice over ranges from ok to good, with the mandatory amount of cheese.

I'm sticking with my ranged bfg seraphim for the main story and class quests through bronze...almost done. I'll do the side quests if I play through again in silver.

The seraphim starts getting really cool, high-tech combat armor around level 15 or so. I try and only use the high tech armor, mostly because the other option is armored underwear, and because the high tech armor looks badass. By level 30 my seraphim was fully decked out head to toe in camo armored plates, some woodland and some urban, carrying her fully upgraded BFG.

My seraphim looks much cooler than my Shadow Warrior, who has some of the goofiest armor I've ever seen in a game. He's wearing what looks like an armored panda helmet right now, complete with cute metal ears (ugh). He also likes to sport metal clogs, short shorts, and glowy blue shoulder capes. I have skull shoulders for him now, but they look absurd with his hot shorts, panda helmet, and pointy-toed metal clogs. I found a set helmet for him that can best be described as wtf weird, like something you would see in a circ du soliel show.

If you stick with the seraphim, despite the yipees! (they don't happen too often), you will be rewarded with some very cool armor. And, if you ever want to switch back to armored underwear, you can do that too

A few of the archetype/class names didn't survive the German-English translation, or they were literal translations. While Pirate is an awesome sounding class, it's really a Viking. Even the names during character creation are viking names, not pirate names. I guess a viking could sort of be considered a pirate raider, but not in the classical sense of "Arrrr matey!!" Either way, the Viking...Pirate is a strong class.

Metamage has to be a translation thing. That doesn't even sound right. Maybe Meta = Arch, which would have been Archmage? Or they could have just gone with the function of the template, Necromancer. Warrior is ok, but probably would have been better named Knight, given the formal academy stuff and starting boost to Etiquette. Soldier could have been named Warrior. Archer is just kind of meh. Why would you want to play an Archer when you can play a Ranger?

All the dwarf classes are cool: Merc, Prospector and Sapper. Something about a Dwarf Merc just seems badass. Their running animation is a little weird, especially without weapons.

The Elven Spellweaver and Ranger are good, but Fighter? Come on! That's pretty vanilla for an elf melee-magic class.

I just finished up the starter area with a Viking Pirate and the Dwarf Merc last night. Both are good. Graphics are great. Very smooth. Even the interface is good. Production values seem really high for a $29 game.

My brute has decided to fill more of a Don King role by losing all of his own fights, but building up a dojo of better fighters. He leads by losing, inspiring his pupils to be everything he is not. So far it is working.

RIP Tabula Rasa. You had some good ideas. Ranged combat was the best of any mmorpg I've played, and the bane base assaults and defenses were fun, for awhile. Character clones were a great idea...one I fear will be lost to most future mmorpg developers.

As for Steam, we'll see if I get used to it. I was certainly not pleased that as soon as I turned the computer on this morning it was asking for my login.

You can disable Steam from starting with Windows. Steam really isn't that bad overall, but I like Impulse much more.

Do you have to sign into Windows Live to play DoW2? That would piss me off and I'd rather just see that service go away.

It signs me in automatically whenever I start the game. Not a big deal for me, since I already went through that frustrating setup experience with the original Gears of War, but I was surprised to see it. The first time I started the game I had all sorts of messages popping up starting with the normal Steam start up process, then the GFW Live login, my GFW friends online, an update message for GFW, and Steam's pop up about the mysterious MP code that I'm supposed to need. I haven't tried running the game without logging into GFW Live.

I also remember with great fondness sneaking through the woods in the SP portion of the game, praying that no one would see me.

OP had such great atmosphere. I hope they recapture it with this sequel.

Exactly how I felt about the original too. They nailed the atmosphere, including the sense of total chaos and confusion. It was not a forgiving experience if you tried to run and gun, or were used to having perma-shields with regenerating health. I also remember fondly the nerve wracking runs through the woods trying to out maneuver baddies, hoping that I was navigating correctly and that i would pop out near the objective.

As someone who lived this profession for awhile, Operation Flashpoint was the game that got it pretty close to right imo...particularly the mixed emotions and sensations of frustration, fear, anxiety, thrill, excitement and total chaos. The graphics were not that great, even for when it was released, and there were plenty of bugs. Plus it had an unforgiving learning curve. Some of it was of course over the top and silly (like the vehicle use), but overall it was a a good spec ops infantry simulator.

Most of the actual games dubbed as infantry simulators or realistic squad based infantry experiences have not been as effective imho. The next closest would be the CoDs I guess, but those can be goofy too...but they're fun

The Steam DoW2 install process was borked for me too, and I already had steam installed with GFW Live setup from Gears of War. I bought the game off steam thinking it was pointless to buy the box since it has to be linked to steam anyway. The game wouldn't install. It just sat at "Download Starting..." for a couple of hours. After checking their forums for a solution, which I found, I ended up having to delete all of my steam folder contents, only leaving steam.exe. After a couple of restarts (I needed to disable steam from auto starting with my pc), the install process finally started. After jumping over that hurdle, everything else went smoothly.

I was also stumped by the MP passcode that Steam keeps insisting I will need. I just ignore it now. As to the quality of the game, I'm a 40k fan, so this is gaming goodness for me.

With that said, I agree with Rittchard's thoughts. I can't understand why pc developers seem to be making it harder to install their games. It's silly. I'm all for playing without the dvd in the drive, but not by turning the install process into 1-3 hour pc tinkering/troubleshooting exercise. As pc gamers we already have to tinker and troubleshoot to optimize performance, having to spend hours on the install process just makes console gaming that much more appealing.

I tried it again after the completion of the Westcliff enhancement project, and was able to do pretty well. So with 86 points I was eager to get my legendary firearm or killer loot prize. Instead I got a crappy old bed lol. Wth?

I'm guessing it's a lot easier on the PC. It's stupid hard on the 360 due to the controller. I've finished it a few times but never placed high enough to get anything. I'll have to try it with my clockwork rifle.

The only concern I have is the server populations, and the need to have healthy player bases to make scenarios, open rvr, and PQs fun. I'm actually ok with consolidating servers. I haven't played a mmo before that relies so heavily on the player base to be fun...in all aspects of the core game.

From a customer's point of view it seems like their operation is a cluster f**k. Their PR and community folks are a nightmare.

I also enjoyed the combat, as gimmicky as it was dialing up combos. It felt visceral, and less auto attacky. I think they are feeling the impending doom of Warhammer. Even though the combat in WAR is a lot less visceral, the overall game experience (for me) is so much better. I wonder if they can survive with more of a niche player base. It seems like Funcom made a decent amount of $ on the initial sales of the game. How long does that last before they start operating in the red?

I finished last night playing a defender. Don't feel bad about dying, I think the next closest game where I died as many times and actually finished without breaking the dvd was Ninja Gaiden. Speccing in the middle defender line really helped once I was able to keep the 100% status effect damage reflection shield up all of the time.

It seems like they never rebalanced the game after they dropped the 4 player coop idea. Playing a Bioengineer solo must have been a nightmare. Low melee and low ranged damage, and some health regen. If they had retooled the game for solo and coop play, natural health regen should have been the norm for all classes. Give the bioengineer some really nice hots and direct heals, and maybe some creative damage output like plagues, viruses, dna deconstruction, etc. I can't imagine soloing with one in the campaign. There should be a masochist achievement medal for that

It's not fun to have a damage over time effect put on a player that has no means to naturally regen health. It forced me to go barrel, err...crystal hunting to find health boosts.

Even though I want to try out the berserker, I know what's in store during the boss battles, and I just don't want to do that again solo.

I could see where dual wield would be a nice advantage for a berserker if the chance to proc effects increased (not sure if beserkers have any procs in their skill tree).

I was thinking of re-speccing out of the defender ice line for my last push. Freezing enemies is nice in theory for crowd control, but I really don't need it for melee CC. I'd rather have skills that help me kill things faster, or contribute to pure damage mitigation. Ice line sounded great, but it's not the close stuff that I have a problem with, it's the ranged enemies. If I can kill the melee stuff faster, I think I'll be better off. I can see the ice line being helpful in coop though. I freeze stuff, berserker zips around and kills it.

Hey Roguetad, I don't have the full game (only played the demo), but the other thing that turned me off was that all the skill trees seemed the same. You can't diversify among them and the structure of them all looked identical (i.e. a spider, a battlecry etc.). Is that off the mark?

You're right on. They share the same structure in how the paths are setup. I'm not really wild about the skill trees. Even the graphic UI is kind of bland. The skills are ok, with bigger differences in the spiders and battle cries. The other skills are mostly passive and not terribly exciting.

I'm almost done playing through as a defender. It's been mostly fun with one exception...the ranged baddies are freaking ridiculous. Their range reaches all the way across large sections of a map, there are lots of them usually setup with wicked angles for crossfire, and there's really no way to close with them without getting ripped apart. Most of my deaths have come as a result of ranged crossfire that I wasn't able to close the distance with in time.

Quick example, I come across a mixed group of melee and ranged enemies with a troll thrown in the mix. The AI works together well, and will swarm me with the melee types while keeping the ranged units away from me. So far so good. This is just good AI imo. As I'm trying to work through this group, the ranged baddies from the next group a quarter mile away further down the linear map start opening fire on me. If I dispatch the ranged foes in the current swarm, ignore the melees, and head to the next group to take out their ranged guys, I end up with two groups of melee, and the third group of ranged baddies now shooting at me.

What I like is that the AI constantly pulls me towards the next engagement; what I don't like is that they're doing it from at least 2-5 times my max weapon range, maybe more. It's not game breaking, but it's annoying, and takes some of the fun out. I also noticed that my defender who's equipped in almost all red armor (elite?) has pretty good resists against everything except ballistics. He has a big fat 0 in ballistics resists! And he's carrying a freaking shield. Doesn't make any sense.

Speaking of weapons, the manual is pathetic. There's no mention of the perks for each weapon group, or why I would want to use a hammer and shield as a defender versus a staff that does more damage and has a boost to total armor%. I have no clue what the shield even does in the hammer and shield combo. It doesn't add to his armor, and doesn't seem to add to any of his resists. The weapon type is listed as dual wield, but the damage isn't any better than a single sword. There's no blocking. It looks cool, but I just don't see a reason not to just use the best weapon available. I think single swords have a better chance to crit, hammers can juggle multiple foes in the air, dual wield I have no idea, staff seems to have an aoe arc to the normal attack, and hammer and shield I have no clue either. The sword and staff fierce attacks are great, and actually have decent range. The hammer fierce attacks have a harder to execute whirling throw arc to them.

Since this thread has morphed into warhammer dwarfs, yes or no, I give a big yes. I don't normally like them in other games, but they are badass in warhammer. Physics and anatomy be damned, Ironbreakers look cool...and they seem to live up to their name well.

Regarding the classes, I can only comment on Order up to R10. When pet pathing and AI was working, the White Lion was probably my favorite. Witch Hunter was next, but mostly due to the lore and class concept. I think I actually preferred the gameplay of the White Lion. After those 2, I played a Shadow Warrior, Engineer, Ironbreaker, and Rune Priest. Ironbreakers are a lot of fun for a tank class. I liked the SW because of the flexibility of the stances that can be used for different roles or situations. The Engineer was ok, but I don't think I really got a good impression of the class by R8. Rune Priests are strong, and have a pretty cool merlin take on the style of their robes and head gear. If I were to play a healer, it would be RP, no question.

It seems like choosing a class will be a tough decision for many based on how well designed most of the classes are. Regardless of which way I go, I don't think I'll be disappointed.

I think this game got the shaft as part of a general backlash towards someone shooting their mouth off, and the amount of time in development. It does not suck. I've played worse hack and slash games that received much better reviews. I'd rate it in the mid 70s to low 80s on a 1-100 scale. Yep, there are some ugly parts of the game, but it's not nearly as bad as some of the reviews state.

The camera can definitely be wonky at the default setting. ISO seems to be the safest, and by safest I mean grants the widest view of the battlefield. Strategic seems to work different than the other angles. It zooms in close during melee, and seems to pan out further as soon I go to guns. I trend to bounce back and forth between Back and ISO.

This is not a pushover hack and slash, there are some really tough battles. While a single enemy will not be particularly tough for Baldur, it's the combined efforts of different types of baddies working together that makes for some really humbling sections. Expect to die...a lot...especially on the 2nd map. I'm starting to wonder if the game was balanced more for 2 people rather than 1 player solo in some sections. Even playing a defender I have little chance not dying going up against some packs of mixed units that send forth their tanks to block me while their ranged and missile units rip me apart. Don't get me wrong though, it's actually refreshing to see the game AI do this.

The loot is awesome. Cybernetic looks different than Human armor, and each class has unique armor and weapons.

The skill trees are ok to pretty good. My defender took what I would label the Ice Defender path, and has several different ways to control crowds and mitigate damage by freezing baddies. He has a flat 5% chance on each melee hit to freeze his target. He can activate his battle cry which creates a shield that has a chance to freeze attackers. His spider does an aoe freeze attack that is strong enough to lock down some bosses and hordes of normal foes ranked up. I haven't even touched any of the Cybernetic skill tree yet!

The voice acting is cheesy, but it fits with genre, and doesn't take anything away from the experience for me. I'm not expecting to live out the story of Beowulf in a hack and slash game. Actually, too much story can get in the way of the fast pace. Speaking of which, I agree with the notion that the "back at base" map is way too big, and does actually grind the pace down to a crawl. That said, getting back into the drop ship and ready for action again doesn't take that long if I don't screw around and get side tracked.

The combat is fun for me, and has that I'm a god kicking ass feel to it. Every now and then I get the I'm a god getting my ass kicked feeling, but overall, Baldur is a badass.

It's not a top tier game, but it's not nearly as bad as I would have thought based on the reviews and backlash.

Is this gonna be a standup fight, sir, or another bughunt?All we know is that there's still no contact with the colony, and that a xenomorph may be involved.Excuse me sir, a what?A xenomorph.It's a bughunt.

and what are these "cybernetic" skill trees you speak of - did i miss a whole different set of skills somewhere?

One of SK's design blog videos shows a cybernetic vs human skill tree, or mod tree, or whatever they're calling it. It sounded like there are decision points in the game that allow the player to focus more on cybernetic enhancements through a seperate skill tree, and natural enhancements in another skill tree. I could have completely misunderstood what they were saying though. I did notice in the demo that the icons to RT or LT select another screen are available but not working from the skill tree screen.

Regarding the mutually exclusive skill paths, there's a message that pops up when you try and put a point in the first yellow spider skill, and another in the first blue mapped skill. The message reads something like if you put a point here, you won't be able to put any points in the other spider or blue skills in the other paths. At least that's what I remember off the top of my head.

I can't imagine what's shown in the demo represents all of the skill trees. I was already down to the blue mapped battle cry skills at level 7.